Senator Baldwin Proposes New Bill Regarding Status of Gray Wolves in Wisconsin

Friday, June 2nd, 2023 -- 10:01 AM

(By Rich Kremer, Wisconsin Public Radio) Wisconsin's gray wolves would lose their endangered species status under a bill being introduced by Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

According to Rich Kremer with the Wisconsin Public Radio, Baldwins' bill follows decades of legal and political battles over whether the wolf population has recovered enough to warrant dropping federal protections.

Her "Northern Great Lakes Wolf Recovery Act" would take a somewhat novel approach by expanding the definition of Minnesota's wolf population, which has been federally listed as "threatened" since 1978, to include wolves in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The threatened designation allows wolves to be killed if they threaten humans, pets or livestock. "I have long supported commonsense efforts to delist the gray wolf in Wisconsin because the science shows that the population has recovered in the Great Lakes region," Baldwin said in an emailed statement.

"While other parts of the country have different wolf populations and management needs, this legislation will allow our agriculture, Tribal, scientific, and impacted communities to come together to create a solution that works for Wisconsin."

The bill also seeks to create a regional wolf advisory committee made up of stakeholders including tribes, state agencies and wolf biology experts along with representatives from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service.

The group would work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a new proposal to remove wolves from the endangered list and draft a new "post-delisting monitoring plan" for gray wolves in the region.

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